mewcomm

World War I Reading (Riveting and Stunning)

In this 100 year anniversary of the Civil War, many articles, books and events have occured around the world to mark this most insane conflict .   It was called, the "War to end all Wars"

 

 How it began is telling and all to human.  The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark

For students of history and news junkies. The Balkans, Serbian irredentism, the Black Hand, and the Habsburgs' fraught involvement and Russo-French investment in the region. All that stuff we history majors (well European history ) read in upper division college courses. A bit heavy in part after all these years but fascinating.

                                                                          

                                       Sleepwalkers ends as the war begins. In 2010 I read GJ Meyers, "A World Undone".  I had previously read two other WWI history accounts. Meyers book:  Depicts the slaughter, genocide,  the upheaval of Civilization and it  is a gripping narrative that illuminates and sickens all at once. Meyers has reaffirmed misanthropy as my base philosophy. So profound, that I could not  read a book about war for a long time. Meyer numbed me to the core. But the book is important and a must read. If you seek  to feel the reality of the period, this is the book.

READING: “An exquisitely crafted novel that carries the reader on an adventuresome journey into the depths of totalitarian North Korea and into the most intimate spaces of the human heart.”—Pulitzer Prize citation. What a piece of work!

Young News Photographer

Feb. 1979, 3:00am, Police officer shot and killed. Washington Post Photographer sent me this the next day.  This is the kind of picture old men look at to recall their vibrancy and youth!  Laughs!